A. M. Saunders, A Dutch Girl with a Basket

A handwritten label on the reverse names the painter as A. M. Saunders, of whom we have found no further record. The frame was made by Matthias Watts & Co. of Moseley Village, Birmingham, which suggests the painter lived in or near the city. Dutch fisherfolk in traditional dress were a popular subject for British painters around 1900.

A young woman stands full-length against a plain grey wall, one hand on her hip. She wears a winged white cap, a blue dress, a long white apron and wooden clogs, and carries a wicker basket of produce. Her hair is dressed in the full Edwardian style. The background wash is loose, and the face and hands more carefully worked.

Watercolour on paper, unsigned. On the reverse, a handwritten label reads ‘Painted by A.M. Saunders’, beside the printed label of Matthias Watts & Co., Ltd., The Art Works, Moseley Village, Birmingham. In a gilt mount and an oak-grained frame with reeded gilt edges, worn in places.